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IN AUGUST 2025, President Donald Trump took control of the police force in Washington, D.C., and deployed the National Guard throughout the city. To justify the incursion, he said the district was experiencing a "crime emergency" -a highly debatable characterization. Violent crime remains a problem in the district, but the homicide rate has been down over the past two years, and it remains considerably lower than it was in the 1990s.
As federal agents rounded up civilians en masse and Trump pledged to widen his occupation to more American cities, many feared this was a step toward an authoritarian takeover of the country. That remains a possibility, but skeptical grand juries have so far provided an important backstop for liberty by refusing to go along with the administration's most overzealous prosecutions.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says, with only a handful of exceptions: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury." In practice, though, grand juries rarely fail to indict. The entire process...